This course introduces students to the main experimental and quasi-experimental techniques developed to study the ex-post impact of public policies (randomization, differences-in-differences, instrumental variables, synthetic control, Matching, and regression in discontinuity). Quantitative techniques allow us to examine the causal effects of public policies in general and are applicable to multiple contexts. In this course, in addition to learning the most important features of these techniques, students face the process of designing an empirical evaluation of a policy of their choice, and the challenge of proposing and developing the most appropriate evaluation methods to estimate ex-post causal policy impacts.

Course objectives

• Learn the difference between policy evaluation techniques
• Understand the importance of the right methodological choice to avoid the underestimation or the overestimation of program impacts.
• Familiarise with real and applied policy evaluations.
• Learn how to develop a policy evaluation design.
• Learn how to execute an empirical policy evaluation.

Final achievements

At the end of this course, you should be able to:

• Make an appropriate choice of policy evaluation techniques.
• Read and understand real world policy evaluations.
• Critically assess empirical work.
• Execute empirical policy evaluations.

Assessment

• Participation in class: 10%
• Policy Evaluation Project (Group): 40%
• Individual Presentation: 10%
• Final Exam: 40%